December 14, 2007 - January 13, 2008
District of Columbia Arts Center gallery

Thursday, November 8, 1979

Meet the Artist :: Benjamin Edwards

I stumbled (literally) across Benjamin Edwards' work while moving into my new studio space in downtown DC. Ben's studio (a lot more organized than mine) has two glass doors that showcase whatever large-format painting he's working on.

aha! I said, when I saw his crazy landscapes full of computer generated shapes, bit-mapped text and strange characters against deserted backdrops.

Automatic City

After visiting his site, I was even more thrilled to read his writings and delve further into his work.

His images of houses look like CAD designs for outrageous McMansions.. perfectly fitting with the themes of excess I wanted to address in this show. The house images also remind me of science fiction writings that describe homes of the future with automatic fixtures, robotic arms a'plenty, and acid-green lawns.

House

Another series of Edwards' work is the Ether series which show a confusing world of clashing logos, characters, streets, spam texts and neon shapes.. to me they are like a 'spilling out' of the Internet onto a pristine space..like Vegas springing up in the middle of the desert, or what might happen if we ever did colonize mars..or if martians colonized earth!

Ether Study [Sera]

Ben will be showing pieces from these three bodies of work in the DCAC show.